In three days’ time, families up and down the country will be sitting down to enjoy their long-awaited Christmas dinner.
And with the unstoppable rise of Instagram #food snaps, a large proportion of those festive meals will inevitably end up on social media.
So how can you stop your plate from looking like a sloppy, gravy-covered mess?
Culinary artist and scientist Charles Michel is on hand to reveal the science behind a beautiful Christmas dinner.
Charles has undertaken extensive research on multisensory perception applied to food at the experimental psychology department of Oxford University.
Will your Christmas dinner plate look like this? Culinary artist and scientist Charles Michel has revealed the science behind a beautiful Christmas dinner – from the gravy to the chicken
He has co-published over a dozen papers in scientific journals on ‘food aesthetics’ – the space between food, art and science, and he’s shared his insight on the perfect plating of Christmas food.
As well as getting the maximum amount of Instagram ‘likes’, research has shown that the sight of a beautiful plate of food can entice the appetite and set expectations of how much we are going to enjoy the it – it seems we eat with our eyes first.
Now, Charles teamed up with M&S to reveal his ultimate rules for the perfect plate of Christmas dinner.
His tips for optimum ‘food aesthetics’ include using no more than one upright roast potato, artfully arranging your parsnips and pouring only a small circle of gravy – which means strictly no drizzling.
Why you should pick a round plate instead of a square one: Charles is urging diners to think of their plates as a ‘blank canvas’ which they should choose carefully
Artful arrangement: Choose no more than one upright roast potato, artfully arrange your parsnips and pour only a small circle of gravy – which means strictly no drizzling
Charles is also urging diners to think of their plates as a ‘blank canvas’ which they should choose carefully.
‘Round plates are often preferred to angular ones,’ he says. ‘The more space you have on the plate, the more neat and less messy your plating will be.
‘The colour matters too: plate colour has been proven to affect food taste, but also, change the colour contrast balance.’
And when arranging the food on your plate, it’s important to consider the colour palette: ‘There’s nothing more exciting than a plate filled with highly contrasted colours.
Charles’s top tips include adding a neat ‘circular dot’ of gravy, plenty of space on the plate and making sure your turkey arrangement isn’t too ‘linear’
‘From an evolutionary perspective, colour diversity indicates to our brains the presence of a richness in nutrients, which our body needs for a healthy diet.
‘Add colourful berries, or a few leaves of one of the recipes’ ingredients – think rosemary or thyme tops, or edible flowers.’
His other top tips include adding a neat ‘circular dot’ of gravy, plenty of space on the plate and making sure your turkey arrangement isn’t too ‘linear’.
Charles’s tips for the perfect plate
1· Only one roast potato should be placed on the plate and should be turned upright to give height to the plate
Is this the perfect Christmas dinner plate?
2· Add further height by leaning the parsnips against the potato
3· Cushion one Brussels sprout on a bed of pancetta and chestnuts to give a burst of colour
4· Place slices of turkey on a bed of red cabbage to provide contrasting colours and a blend of flavours and textures
5· Pour only a small circle of gravy in one area of the plate, rather than all over everything